The ABCs of Love

by Sarah Salway

  I couldn’t stop staring.

  His wrist was beautiful. There is something about certain men’s wrists just poking out of a jacket sleeve that gets me every time. That little nubble on the edge of the bone and the hollow in the middle of the flat bit that joins hand and arm. It’s impossible to see a man with a wrist like that and not think of what he could do to you with his fingers.

  I kept thinking what bit of my body had the same effect on John. It sounds strange, but I liked the backs of his knees best. It was as if no one else had ever touched them but me.

  Sally has beautiful ears. When she’s busy talking sometimes, she twists her hair behind her ears, and she looks like a little puppy dog. Her face is so sweet and vulnerable, I want to crush her to me. It’s hard to explain, that mixture of wanting to hurt and wanting to care for someone all at the same time.

  I was pleased when my station came and I could get off. Sometimes it’s hard to realize how near to the edge you are standing.

  See also Danger; Elephant’s Egg; Nostrils; Railway Stations; Velvet

  X

  xenophobia

  My father hated going abroad. When my mother did manage to persuade him to go on a foreign holiday, he’d never be happier than when he found a view or a street that reminded him of the Home Counties.

  “You could almost be in England,” he’d say in admiration, and he would look around as if he’d found something remarkable. It used to drive my mother mad—the fact that he really did think that it was this that made going abroad worthwhile.

  Sally and I have been planning lots of foreign holidays together. I phoned my solicitor to see how much money I had.

  “Verity, your investments are so sound, you could practically buy the airline,” he said, and when I started to say that I didn’t really think I wanted to go that far, he interrupted to say he’d been joking.

  “You really must take an interest,” he said. “This is your future security we’re talking about.”

  I pretended he was right, because I knew he’d only give me a lecture otherwise. I said that I’d start to read the business pages and get actively involved.

  I even asked whether he’d help me understand it all a little better. He went all huffy and puffy and said he’d be delighted. He said that, even if he must say so himself, he’d been doing something rather clever and exciting with my capital investments that he thought I’d find rather amusing.

  I told him I couldn’t wait.

  See also Ambition; Codes; Houses; Illness; Promotion; Voices; Yields

  x-rated

  Colin rang me up at work. I was surprised but thought he’d called about Sally. I was all set to be a good best friend and put him straight about a thing or two, when he suddenly asked me if I wanted to have an affair with him.

  I couldn’t think of anything to say. Eventually, I said I was sorry.

  “No harm in asking,” he said and rang off.

  I phoned Sally straightaway. I thought this was something she ought to know, and I’d rather she heard it from me than anyone else. I was surprised when she burst out laughing.

  She said she’d been expecting something like this, just never thought it would happen so quickly. It was relief that made her laugh, she said. Relief that she didn’t feel sadder about it. Sometimes you need to go as near to the edge as you can, for all the bad things you’re imagining to pile up one on top of the other, so you can stop wondering about what might have happened. You know the worst.

  “Typical Colin, though,” she said then. “He’s always had fantasies about the two of us, you and me.”

  When I put the phone down, I realized that Sally had painted a very different picture of what happened from what I think Colin was actually intending, but I suppose she’s just trying to protect herself.

  I had a long bath that night. Even if Sally was wrong, I wanted to wash off the feeling of being part of someone else’s porn movie.

  See also Colin; Lesbians; Phantom E-mails; Rude; Voyeur; Youth

  x-ray vision

  Sally could be right about the fact that I have special powers. It’s not something I like to talk about, but I am peculiarly sensitive to what people are really thinking. Gifts like this have to be used responsibly. Not everyone wants someone else looking inside their brain.

  I have started to practice it with John. I sit cross-legged on the ground, hold a piece of his writing in between my hands, and then I just concentrate.

  I know when I connect with John because I feel this rush of energy surge through me and I get this picture in my mind like I’m this tiny little figure throwing herself on top of John and just clinging there. It does worry me that it always feels like this. As if I’m one of those monkey dolls hanging round a child’s neck and not letting go.

  I have to peel myself off before I can start to transmit thoughts to John. I tried it with Colin the other day. I thought of him replacing the receiver after I’d turned him down and saw how upset he was. The interesting thing was that Colin and I were walking hand in hand through a field of shining buttercups. I didn’t do that clinging thing, and I was able to transmit to Colin easily. I felt he needed me, so I sent him healing thoughts.

  Sometimes now when I use my powers, I’m not sure who is going to pop up—John or Colin. I don’t do it so often anymore.

  See also Omens; Sculpture; Teaching; Vendetta; Zest

  X

  There are things about Sally nowadays that keep reminding me of my mother. For instance, I had forgotten how strongly my mother believed in education. She was always attending classes at the local adult education center too. It was almost a religion with her. She’d search through the brochure every autumn, working out what to do. It was an interesting way to gain knowledge, because she became an expert on specialist subjects such as Stonehenge, garden history, and the Greek tragedies, but she was unable to add up a single row of figures. It was as if she were in training to become the perfect quiz-show contestant.

  I found my grandparents’ wedding certificate in my mother’s drawer after she died. I was thinking about framing it when I noticed that my grandmother’s father had signed with an X. I suddenly thought about my mother sitting at the kitchen table struggling over her books, and I felt so ashamed about how annoyed I was at the time because she was taking up so much space. I can’t help wondering now what it must have been like in her house when she was growing up. Did they read books? How did she get to love reading so much? Is this why she was always buying books for me to read? I’d forgotten how many books she used to buy me, how we used to go to the library together every week.

  If God had had a family, he’d have created a telephone number you could use for all those questions you need to ask dead people once it’s too late. A mobile with wings.

  See also Telephone Boxes; Voices

  Y

  yard

  The other night, I found myself walking down Colin’s road. This is not because he interests me. It has become a habit from when he first took up with Sally.

  I was surprised to see a milk bottle that had been painted gold left out in the empty yard next door to Colin’s house. I couldn’t imagine who had done such a thing or why.

  I often make observations like this. It’s as if I am more aware of what is going on around me than other people. The other day, for instance, I saw a couple going round a music shop filling up a basket each with CDs. Why was that? Had they won the lottery? Or maybe they were both starting music collections from scratch?

  And then there was the old man on the train who was composing a complicated musical score on the back of a business letter. The businessman carrying a school satchel. The middle-aged woman taking a rabbit for a walk in the park with a collar and lead.

  It’s hard when the stories queue up like this and there’s no one to tell them to. I thought I might call Colin and tell him about the milk bottle. It seems only polite since he contacted me so recently and it was in his neighbor’s yard. I thought he might be intereste
d.

  See also Doors; Endings; Foreheads; Phantom E-mails; Stalking; X-ray Vision

  yellow

  I have spent the weekend painting my hallway a cheerful yellow. It was exhausting, but I have rarely felt so satisfied as when I finished. I kept going outside in the street so I could open my front door and see how good it looked.

  I told Brian about it on Monday, and he said I’d created my own little sunlit island. I rushed home from work just so I could see it again. I even left the door on the latch so people walking past could glimpse in and feel jealous of me and my home.

  See also Doors; Property; Sculpture; Utopia; Washing Powder; Wobbling

  yields

  Sally came round for supper to see my painting. I noticed that the conversation kept turning toward Colin and that I blushed every time she mentioned his name, so I tried to change the subject.

  We started talking about Brian, and all our other friends with disastrous love lives, but then we got back to Colin again, so I asked Sally about her investments instead. She has decided to keep her flat rented out and to buy another flat to live in. I was interested in this, because I’d been reading the papers like I promised the solicitor and there’d been several articles recently about the buy-to-let market in the suburbs. The solicitor keeps telling me that the yields we’ve been getting on my parents’ house are disappointing, and although the tenants are safe, he wonders if I need to maximize my investments.

  I thought about the last meeting I’d had with the solicitor, and I tried to practice some of the language I’d learned on Sally.

  “It could be an idea,” I told her, “to buy some property for short-term lets for all the people who have to move somewhere quickly when their relationships have broken down.”

  But then we couldn’t stop talking. We planned out a hostel for the brokenhearted, with soundproof rooms so you could cry without anyone hearing you, enormous soft sofas to sink into, comfort food delivered to your door, country music piped into your bedroom, plastic bricks to throw at walls, and lots and lots of shoulders to lean on.

  “Just like the song,” she said. I could tell she thought it was just a bit of fun, but when she’d gone home, I started making notes. In the morning, I rang the solicitor and told him my mother’s story about the architect and his lover. He said it sounded very interesting and made an appointment for me to come and see him to talk more about it.

  See also Codes; Houses; Money; True Romance; Xenophobia; Youth you

  I knew I shouldn’t have done it. I knew it was a mistake even as I was dialing the number, but some time ago, I had written myself a note in my diary that today I could call John. Since then, I’ve been counting off the days. There were times when it was all that kept me going. However, even when I was waiting for him to answer, I was telling myself I’d never do it again. And then when he answered the phone and said, “Hello, you,” I could tell he didn’t know who it was for a second. He said he was pleased to hear from me and that he missed me, but I kept thinking about the way he’d said “Hello, you” and how different it was from every time he’d said it before.

  When I put the phone down, I wrote another note in my diary for when I could call him again, but this is for a long time in the future. Anything could happen before then.

  See also Grief; Mistaken Identity; Phone Calls; Why?

  youth

  Brian read out a bit from the newspaper that said that men are genetically programmed to fall in love for a final but lasting time when they reach the age of fifty-one. What is interesting about this is that when John is fifty-one, I will be thirty-five and apparently, women of that age are often at their most fertile. This was the first thing I thought of, even though I haven’t spoken to John for a while. Still, it is nice to know we have ten more years before nature is ready for us if something should happen.

  I eventually plucked up enough courage to call Colin. He couldn’t work out who I was at first, but then he suddenly burst out laughing.

  “Verity,” he said, as if I hadn’t just been repeating my name. “Sally’s desperate friend.”

  I couldn’t believe it. This is why I didn’t stick up for Sally when he told me that she had been too old for him. That he was going out with an eighteen-year-old now. Evidently, they have a really strong connection, and she interests him in a way Sally never really could. “You know what they say about younger chicks,” he said with a laugh, and then he asked me why I rang. I said I couldn’t remember.

  Afterward, I told Brian what Colin had said. I thought he might defend him, but he was disgusted.

  “I guess that proves that some men are just genetically programmed to be jerks,” he said, and he put his arm around me. He didn’t even try to squeeze my waist like he normally does.

  Another interesting thing is that I remember Brian celebrating his fiftieth birthday last year.

  See also Danger; Old; X-rated; Weight

  Z

  zeitgeist

  ’I’m finding it difficult to concentrate on reading anything substantial at the moment. All that happens is that I end up reading the same lines over and over again, watching the letters dance on the page rather than trying to take in the words.

  To fill in the time, I’ve taken to doing the questionnaires in women’s magazines. The strange thing is that they all seem to be about subjects I need the answers to. I have learned so much about myself as a result. I fill in those little boxes with as much concentration as my father used to tick off items on his list of things to do. My only worry is that I am slipping farther and farther down the age categories. I have noticed that in some magazines, there are no boxes to tick if you are over the age of thirty-four. Presumably by this stage, you will be too busy being successful to fill in questionnaires, but what happens if you don’t manage that? How will you get to know things about yourself then?

  See also Happiness; Illness; Imposter Syndrome; Routines; Teaching

  zen

  I can’t remember how old I was when I realized that most things are better as memories than as the real thing.

  It’s the same with photographs. Everybody always smiles for the camera, so when you look back, it is difficult to imagine a more glorious time. This is why when people are looking through a pile of photographs and suddenly stop to look at one a bit harder, you know that it will be a picture of them. They are trying to remember what it felt like to be that happy and whether that moment was really more joyful than the unrecorded, soon-to-be-unremembered present moment.

  See also Ants; Imposter Syndrome; Kindness; Mars Bars; Noddy; Velvet; Woolworths

  zero

  It’s hard to pinpoint the exact time when work really did become something more than just a shield from the pain about John, but for the most part, it really is what I’m interested in nowadays.

  There are even some days I can get through without crying.

  I went to my first meeting as Brian’s assistant the other day. The client said he was very impressed with our teamwork.

  Brian took me out for a drink afterward and told me I was a natural. He then told me exactly how he was feeling and what he was going through. It took a long time, but it was just nice to be sitting in a pub with someone who wasn’t looking over his shoulder the whole time or at his watch, wondering whether he had enough time to take you home. Or not.

  “I needed a wake-up call,” Brian said, “and speaking of which, what are you like in the morning?” As we left, Brian whispered: “We don’t need to tell anyone at work about this, do we, Ver?” He kept calling me his little secret.

  When Brian hugged me, it felt all wrong. I kept looking for spots to rest my head that just weren’t there. His chin was bristly against my cheek, and I nearly passed out from how homesick I felt for John.

  Brian’s right about something, though. Sometimes you just have to keep moving forward. I rang the solicitor again when I got home. He said I should feel happy to contact him, night or day.

  See also Imposter Syndrome; Phant
om E-mails; Teaching; Victim; Youth; Zen

  zest

  James, the solicitor, and I are opening the first of our brokenhearted hostels in six months’ time. It’s in my parents’ old house, which is why we’re calling it Rose’s House. I think my mother would have liked that. The first of a bouquet of flowers, we hope.

  It’s like my life has started all over again. James says that with his experience and gravitas combined with my youth and energy, we make a perfect partnership. He loves listening to my stories. We’ve got very close during the planning stages, although I’ve been careful not to let the relationship go beyond business at the moment.

  “I’ve learned the hard way,” I tell him, “not to take anything for granted.”

  We’ve agreed that all the money I’ve invested in our brokenhearted-home scheme should be transferred into his name so he can handle the finances, leaving me free to concentrate on the creative planning and ideas. He’s finally agreed that it’s much better for both of us to do what we’re best at. Now he’s got to know me better, he’s more trusting in our relationship.

  It was worth the effort. James makes me feel completely protected. It is so wonderful not to have to worry about anything at all. For the first time in my life, I’m pleased to be me.

  See also Daisies; Doors; Houses; Money—Even More of It; New Men; True Romance; Yellow

  zoology

  Q: Why did the first monkey fall out of the tree?

  A: Because it was dead.

  Q: Why did the second monkey fall out of the tree?

  A: Because it was holding the first monkey’s hand.

  Q: Why did the third monkey fall out of the tree?

  A: Because it thought it was a game.

  See also Captains; Danger; Influences; Ultimatum; Why?

  zzzz

  I woke up in the night realizing that the poets I read when I was a teenager had got it wrong.